(Captchas are the tests intended to distinguish software "bots" from us thinking, letter-recognizing humans).
A Yahoo spokesman said that the company was exploring many search ideas, including the use of software bots that would fetch information on behalf of users.
Captchas, which I wrote about last year, are the popular but pesky tests designed to distinguish software bots from us thinking, letter-recognizing humans.
Over the last two months, eBay says, it has seen the emergence of software "bots" that scan accounts and then try to gain access to them by systematically guessing passwords.
Because it's linked to your phone, we are completely immune to the software bots that hit the big ticketing companies".
The programmer, Walter Kaman, said the promoter had hired someone to build an army of software "bots" that automatically download apps and drive up their rankings.
But if brokers' software bots are elbowing humans aside, harvesting tickets by the bushel that are then welcomed for resale at the online ticket exchanges, then StubHub's policy of "we ask no questions" takes on a bad odor.
Like anything else on the internet, those who use Mechanical Turk and its competitors are liable to spamming and to receiving answers from software "bots" pretending to be real people.
What is needed, according to Mr. Meakin, is a smart "always-on, listening widely" tool to detect emerging security threats — typically software bots intent on pilfering information and committing fraud.
He said the promoter, whom he declined to name so as not to attract clients to the service, had hired someone to build an army of software "bots" that automatically download apps and drive up their rankings.
